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It’s Only Common Sense: Designers Should Know How a PCB is Built

I know I have said this before, but I hate the idea that some people consider the printed circuit board a commodity. You've heard it before: This electronic component is nothing more than a “green plastic card,” a simple platform for the almighty components. Many designers pride themselves on their strategic ignorance of the PCB. Some design trainers tell their students to not pay attention to the people building the boards and ignore their many questions. Other trainers even advise their students to tell the questioners to stop asking so many questions and just build the boards as designed. These designers do this with an attitude of imperious infallibility worthy of the Vicar of Christ.

However, contract manufacturers are getting better. They are starting to take some interest in PCBs and how they are built. My partners and I, as well as some of our PCB clients, have heard from contract manufacturers looking for facts about PCBs and the manufacturing process. Some of them want to talk to our PCB fabrication customers and get advice on how to better design boards—boards that will be easier and more economical to build.

This new trend is particularly refreshing because some of the PCB experts I know have reported that less than 10% of the data packages that PCB shops are getting from their customers are complete and accurate; most of the time, there is something wrong with the data. Combine that with the fact that, until recently, shops that went back to their customers with questions were commonly chastised and told, “Build it the way we designed it.” This often led to disastrous results.

Isn’t that silliest thing you’ve ever heard? A vendor getting chastised for asking their customer questions with the sole intent of building them the best board possible?

As the work force becomes younger, we are faced with a double dilemma because many young designers have never been in a board shop. They do not understand that building a PCB is an extremely complicated process, know how to differentiate one material from another, or appreciate the subtleties of material callouts. In short, many young designers are flying blind when it comes to the very object they are tasked with designing.

If you are ever lucky enough to be asked to tag along with a group of designers and engineers taking a tour of a board house, I urge you to do it. There is nothing quite as fascinating as seeing the looks on designers’ faces as they finally get to see the intricacies of board building. As they follow along and track the process of building a multilayer board, you can see their surprise as they realize how many steps if takes to build a PCB. After a thorough tour, designers never look at a PCB the same again.

I urge all board builders to invite designers and engineers to their board shops for plant tours, and I urge designers and engineers to accept those invitations. It will be the best three hours you will ever spend.

Fortunately, times are changing and many of our customers are now asking for help. Many of my clients are happy to say that customers are not only asking for their advice and help, but they are also inviting them into their companies to give seminars aimed to educate designers on how to produce the best date package possible. Hallelujah!

It’s only common sense.

Dan Beaulieu is president of D. B. Management Group.